


Dance

by kscribbles



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Reunions, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 20:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kscribbles/pseuds/kscribbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dance floor was the perfect place to find a bit of anonymity, and a bit of release for her excess energy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Doomsday fic, set in the alt!verse. Many thanks to my lovely beta, larielromeniel. Written in 2007. Long before we knew of any Rose coming back or duplicate Doctors...

The heady bassline thrummed through her as she wriggled her hips and stomped her feet in time. Occasionally her hands would caress her sides on their way above her head or into her hair, as if they were a lover’s and not her own. And although she must know she created a tantalizing picture to every male in sight, her glistening body barely half-clothed, she danced as if she were all alone.

The song was vaguely familiar to her, as everything in this slightly-wrong world was vaguely familiar. Still it reminded her of being young and carefree, and it was times like these that she could pretend to be just that. Not a care in the world, none of the responsibilities of a top secret job, no fate of the world to think about, and no memory of a lost love to tug at her heart after so many years.

In body she was not yet 27; she felt decades older. Except when she could go out and dance. She always took a mate for safety and an excuse to ward off any blokes who got any ideas from her provocative dancing. She didn’t have time for boyfriends and wasn’t particularly interested in one-off shags either. The dance floor was the perfect place to find a bit of anonymity, and a bit of release for her excess energy.

These days she spent more time behind a desk than running for her life. And while she still found herself often in the field, dealing with the latest alien threat, her life wasn’t made up of one run-for-your-life adventure to the next anymore.

She missed it, truth be told. But here, she’d do her damndest not to think of it. Of _him_. She thought of nothing but the rhythm.

So when a hand landed lightly on her bare shoulder, she hastily brushed it aside, giving what she hoped was a clear not-interested sign without so much as missing a beat. Opening her eyes she saw Mickey’s girlfriend Carla, her chosen companion for the evening, dancing nearby and eying her curiously.

“What?” Rose mouthed.

Carla shrugged and danced a little closer, as Mystery Hand Man became bold and slid his hands to her waist.

Rose stiffened and faltered for a second in her movements, but not wanting to cause a scene (the Vitex Heiress did have to the tabloids to think of, after all), she let the man dance close behind her for a few moments. And it did feel nice to have someone so close. He smelled nice, if vaguely familiar, sparking a memory she quickly shoved away. He wasn’t pawing her or pushing himself up against her, just kept his hands at her waist and moved with her to the pulsing beat.

Still she had a fairly strict policy about these things and was about to remove his hands and to politely tell him to sod off when he brought his lips down to her ear and whispered low. It was so quiet she shouldn’t have been able to hear it over the music, but she _felt_ it, nonetheless.

“Rose.”

She did stop dancing then, because hearing that voice was absolutely, utterly, impossible. The last time she’d heard it say that word, its owner was a second away from disappearing from her life forever, leaving her a sobbing wreck on a cold foreign beach.

Rose slid her hands to cover those at her waist, but otherwise stayed completely still. She was too scared to turn around to confirm that she’d misheard, that she was dreaming, or that maybe she’d finally lost her grip on reality.

Carla sought her eyes again, showing concern, ready to step in and get between her and the would-be suitor. But Rose couldn’t convey anything to her friend, instead she closed her eyes, summoning any inner strength she could find, ready to tell Mr. Can’t Possibly Be The Doctor to peddle his wares elsewhere. But before she could, he spoke again.

“Rose, it’s me.”

He gripped her tighter and she leaned into him, almost convinced that the fantasy was real and suddenly not wanting to let it go. She slid her hands up to grip him behind his neck and began to move her hips to the music again and he followed suit.

“’S impossible,” she murmured.

“Maybe,” he answered, his breath warm on her ear. “Still real, though.”

She opened her eyes, finally remembering Carla’s concern. Rose flashed her a smile, telling her she was all right. As she did, she caught sight of the blue sleeve of her dancing partner. Blue. Now she knew it really wasn’t him. And she knew she should be wary of this man who knew her name, who sounded and felt like the Doctor. Still, she let him hold her, dance with her through several more songs, caress her as she did him, never turning to face him, never breaking the spell that was woven between them, even as he gradually guided their steps towards the edge of the dance floor and away from the crowd.

If he wasn’t an imposter messing with her head, but just a normal bloke, Rose knew what would be expected of her at this point after dancing like they’d been. An exchange of names (though he already knew hers), to accept an offer of drink, maybe a snog, maybe a taxi ride back to his flat and a night of nearly anonymous shagging.

But he wasn’t just any bloke, and she knew she had to deal with the issue and let the thin fantasy shatter completely. She disentangled herself from him and made for the stairs that led to a quieter bar above the dance floor. She didn’t look behind her, but had a pretty good idea that he’d follow.

Running to the bar, a little breathless, she leaned against it and asked the bartender for a water.

“Two, please,” came the familiar voice next to her.

Rose raised her eyes to the mirror that lined the back of the bar, and in between the jewel tones of the wall of countless bottles, was the unmistakable face of the Doctor. She gasped. Wavering unsteadily on her feet, she gripped the edge of the bar for support.

The Doctor slid an arm about her waist to steady her and met her eyes in the mirror.

“Told you,” he said.

Turning in his grasp then, she finally faced him, immediately raising an unsteady hand to his cheek. Though they’d been touching, quite intimately, for some time now, she needed this contact to convince her that her eyes weren’t fooling her like she’d thought the rest of her body had been. Her fingertips made contact with his slightly stubbled face and she quickly drew back, letting go another gasp.

“How–?”

“Long story. Do you–should we–that is–it’s complicated. Can we sit?” he finally asked, glancing to some empty tables clustered in a dark corner.

“You git!” Rose exclaimed and smacked him on the arm. “Why didn’t you _say_ anything?!” Tears threatened in her eyes. _How_ could he have wasted so much time dancing? It wasn’t mock annoyance in her voice, but he gave her a small laugh anyway.

“I thought I did. You wanted to dance.” He shrugged. “So we danced.”

Rose gaped at him for a few moments. Then huffed loudly and dragged him by the hand to a table, their drinks forgotten at the bar. Before they could sit, though, Rose threw herself into his arms. They immediately came up around her, hugging her tightly to him. She breathed in the scent that was, indeed, all Doctor, enjoying his arms around her without the distractions of the dance floor and the doubting of her sanity. Her tears fell freely then, wetting his suit.

“Missed you too,” he whispered into her hair, his voice tight with emotion.

Rose pulled back a little and looked up at him. “How much time is there?” She asked tentatively.

“For you? All the time in the world. Well…I say ‘all’, but you can’t measure time that way, can you? What I mean is enough. Enough time. This time,” he added seriously.

Rose was afraid to ask what for–the possibilities and options running at light speed through her head, wondering what his impossibly possible return meant–but she couldn’t stop the words coming out of her mouth. “Enough for what?”

“For this, at least,” he said gently, then dipped his head and kissed her.

She responded immediately, not even pausing to be shocked at his actions. After their years of separation, and never having done this properly while they _were_ together, it felt too good, too _right_ to question.

Quickly he deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding to meet hers in a dance as sensual as the ones they’d been sharing downstairs, but infinitely more satisfying. His hands roamed her mostly bare back, as his mouth continued its onslaught on hers, and Rose promptly decided that, actually, it would take a _lot_ more of this, and related activities, for her to be satisfied.

When she felt a moan creeping up inside her, she reluctantly pulled away, and buried her face in his suit coat again to let it escape.

“Probably not the right place for this, yeah?” she asked.

“Well,” he considered, looking around. “No, probably not. Sit?” He asked again.

At her nod, he ushered her in to a booth along the wall and sidled in beside her. A silence followed, in which she focused on rememorizing the lines of his face, and listening to the sounds of his breaths, which, fast as they were, seemed to come in time to the muted beat of the bass still pumping below. She itched to kiss him again, but waited, still.

He wrapped his hands around hers, and held tight. He was still silent, but if the odd expressions that passed over his face were any indication, he was looking for precisely the right words, nearly starting to speak a dozen times before stopping himself.

“Doctor–” she began, because someone had to, but he cut her off.

“Rose, there’s so much I have to say to you, and I don’t know how or where to begin.” If the snogging wasn’t proof enough, here was evidence that he was truly letting his guard down around her, admitting he didn’t know what words to form in a tense moment.

“It’s all right,” she soothed, squeezing his hands, “just say…whatever you need to.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath, then, seeming to come to a decision, he asked, “Are you happy here?”

Rose bristled. How could he ask that of her? “You don’t get to ask me that,” she answered, mildly, but firmly.

“I don’t?”

She shook her head. “Not just now. Next question.”

He thought for a few seconds, his tongue darting out to moisten his top lip and distracting her again.

“You know that…in Norway…I was going to tell you…something? Ran out of time. Ironic, that.”

“I know.”

“Right. Well. What I mean to say is… I don’t know if you still…I realize it’s been some years, and I literally came straight here, traced your bio-signature, I have no idea what your life is like here, here in Pete’s World, or who you might…keep company with, besides that lovely woman downstairs who seemed to be your friend, and I know it’s slightly oafish for me to barge back into your life with a dance and a kiss, but if I may say it was a fantastic snog, and if you do still feel anything like you did, back then, then you should know that I do. Too. I do too.”

Rose let a smile grow during his babble. When he paused, though she knew how hard it had been for him even to get that much of an admission out, she prodded him gently.

“You do _what_ too?”

He released her hands and cupped her face, pulling her in for a brief, hard kiss.

“You know. I love you.” And then, more confidently, he repeated, “Rose Tyler, I love you.”

She felt the tears threaten to rise again, and holding them back took all her effort. Words wouldn’t come, and knowing how her silence might seem to him, she tried to smile back.

“And,” he continued as if he hadn’t paused to let her speak, “if you’re in any way agreeable, I’d like very much, to be…with you. For as long as…for as long as we have. I have one trip left back to our universe. And I’ll take it. Tomorrow or in 70 years, with you, or with the memory of a life lived with you. Either way. You’ll not be rid of me.”

Rose boggled at him as he grinned at her. Had he just offered her a _lifetime_? Not in the more rhetorical sense that he had after she’d met Sarah Jane, but an actual offer to be with her, for her whole life. That he’d even stay here, on this slightly-wrong world, if that’s what she wanted. Rose was dumbfounded.

“What?” She squeaked.

He pulled absentmindedly at an earlobe and looked briefly away. “Well, I’m a bit rubbish without you, you know. It took me a bit to figure that out. And a bit longer to figure out how to get here. And longer still to make it all work without imploding at least two universes. And I hope, I really, really hope, that I’m not…too late?”

Happiness billowed inside her and threatened to escape, as she put on a stern face and pretended to consider.

“Rose!” he pressed impatiently.

She gave him a huge grin, then. “Better late, than never ever, yeah?”

 

FIN  


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